Make no mistake about it: President Joe Biden is making it plain that he is coming for the guns of American citizens. Using the opportunity presented by the third anniversary of the horrific Parkland school shooting in Florida, Biden quickly pivoted from a solemn remembrance of the 17 lives taken that day to announce his desire for legislation that, if it were enacted, would make the Second Amendment to the Constitution a virtual dead letter.
“In seconds, the lives of dozens of families, and the life of an American community, were changed forever,” Biden said Sunday in a statement from the White House.
Fourteen students and three educators were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Nikolas Cruz, who had been a student at the school, was charged with the multiple killings, but he has still not been put on trial three years later — which is an indictment of the justice system in itself.
“For three years now, the Parkland families have spent birthdays and holidays without their loved ones,” Biden said. He added, “All across our nation, parents, spouses, children, siblings, and friends have known the pain of losing a loved one to gun violence.”
Making sure not to miss an opportunity to inject a racial component into the discussion, Biden asserted that “gun violence” was “disproportionately devastating black and brown individuals in our cities.”
Biden’s proposed solution is predictable — enact laws that will infringe upon the Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
“This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.… The time to act is now.” (Emphasis added.)
Some will no doubt argue that Biden is not calling for outright gun confiscation, but if his “common-sense gun-law reforms” are fully enacted, it will be very difficult for any more guns to be manufactured and sold in the United States, and it will leave law-abiding American citizens more vulnerable to criminals.
One might recall former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke promising, during a September 2019 Democratic Party primary debate, that he would confiscate legally purchased AR-15s, if he were elected. “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15 and your AK-47,” O’Rourke shouted. When O’Rourke dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Biden, Biden promised to name O’Rourke to head up his own anti-gun violence agenda.
“I want to make something clear, I’m going to guarantee you this is not the last you’ve seen of him,” Biden promised during a campaign rally in Texas. Looking at O’Rourke, Biden said, “You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me. You’re going to be the one who leads this effort.”
Exactly what Biden meant by promising O’Rourke is “going to take care of the gun problem” was not stated at the time, but a closer look at Biden’s own anti-Second Amendment views makes it understandable why he is placing his trust in a man who vows to confiscate guns from Americans who have committed no crimes.
Biden has called for a federal gun buyback program, and supports a renewal of the so-called assault weapons ban. He supports a universal background check for gun sales. Those convicted of “hate crimes” would be banned from owning or buying a firearm. To be sure, persons who commit violent crimes such as armed robbery, rape, or murder are already forbidden from owning a gun. Many of them are in prison.
The critical issue here is what Biden considers a “hate” crime. With the ever-expanding definition of what constitutes a “hate crime,” the possibility that someone could lose his right to keep and bear arms simply because he harbors an unpopular political view is quite real.
Biden also wants “smart guns” that require the owners’ biometrics in order to pull the trigger, despite the likelihood that such technology could render a gun unusable in a defensive situation. During a June 2019 Democratic Party presidential primary debate, Biden said, “We should have smart guns. No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that. We can do that. Our enemy is the gun manufacturers.”
In his Sunday statement, Biden promised to seek the elimination of immunity from liability for gun manufacturers — which he regards as “the enemy.” The average person probably thinks that Biden simply wants normal product liability for gun makers, much like that for a manufacturer who made an unsafe space heater that caused fires, for example. That is not at all what Biden is advocating. What he wants is for people to be able to sue gun manufacturers if someone purchased one of the company’s guns and used the gun to commit a crime, including murder. If someone, for example, were to use a gun to shoot 17 people, the manufacturer of the firearm could be sued in court by all 17 people (or the families of the victims). That would be like suing the Ford Motor Company because someone used a Ford Escape to run over six pedestrians in a crosswalk, or a brickmaker because someone used a brick to commit a murder.
Obviously, the purpose of such elimination of immunity is to eventually bankrupt all gun makers. And, if all gun makers are out of business, then individual Americans can no longer buy a gun, thus indirectly repealing the Second Amendment and gradually eliminating the right to keep and bear arms. The only gun manufacturers left would be a few companies that have been bought out by the government for the purpose of making guns to fill government contracts, and that’s it.
Yes, Joe Biden, just like his fellow anti-gun fanatic Beto O’Rourke, is coming for your guns.
